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The COP26 Summit

What is the COP?:

The COP26 Summit, or the 2021 United Nations climate change conference, was a meeting between various countries with thousands of worldwide representatives and officials present. The goal of this meeting was to engage in a discussion regarding the ongoing destruction of forests and how to help alleviate the ever ongoing list of consequences from climate change. One such forest that was being discussed included most notably the Amazon Rainforest, which contains not only the world's largest rainforest but also some of the most diverse species of flora and fauna. Areas such as the Amazon Rainforest are now known and seen as vital towards our ecological recovery plans and even being recognized as invaluable as carbon sinks that are critical to our efforts to fight climate change. The intended goal of the Summit was to come with a plan and agreement of how to engage ourselves with our surrounding environment to reverse the damage and destruction we have had happen after years of deforestation, oil drilling and construction. This plan is essential to our efforts in absorbing more carbon dioxide and reducing our emissions as without these huge carbon sinks we waste the potential to help absorb over a third of all emissions.

The main conclusions of the Summit can be found here as well as an extensive list of all of the countries pledging their participation in these efforts. However outlined below will be some of the most important points from this Summit towards regenerating our carbon sinks as well as protecting our various forests across the world.

• A pledged agreement was set between 141 different countries where they decided to reverse current deforestation rates and restore 200 million hectares of forest in the process to increase our carbon sinks by 2030.
• 32.7 million dollars are being contributed to assist Indonesia in achieving its previously discussed Paris Agreement Goals. This contribution is vital towards the assistance in managing roughly 7 million hectares of land use in order to improve its viability as an active carbon sink.
• Amazon Alive is a new program being funded to assist in the prevention of environmental crime as well as forest conservation aimed at, "areas that are critical to maintain biodiversity connectivity and are adjacent to natural parks, forest reserves, and Indigenous territories."
• Forest Data Partnership is a new program between the World Resources Institute, Unilever, Google, NASA, and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization to monitor and provide accurate data on forests conditions and therefore help private investors have more sound data.
• Business Case for Collective Landscapes Action is a program hoping to increase the conservation of diverse flora and fauna while also increasing our forests, this partnerships is with Rainforest Alliance, CDP, Clarmondial AG, and Conservation International.
• Cocoa for Climate: This program is involving a large scale chocolate manufacturer who has pledged to assist in large scale forest restoration in key chain areas located throughout the areas of Ecuador and parts of Indonesia.

These pledges among others are estimated to cost roughly 130 Trillion total with 19.2 Billion being put towards conserving and growing our forests worldwide.

In addition, COP26 is noted to be one of the most critical environmental meetings of our time, even more-so than the Paris Climate Agreement set in 2016 as multiple countries failed to reduce their rapid warming and emissions. The timer on the countdown we have to enact change is rapidly moving towards zero. The goals from the COP26 meeting are to be met by 2030 and all nations are in a race to beat the doomsday clock of our warming planet. We are currently on schedule to miss the 1.5 degree rise with temperatures set to reach 2.4 degrees warmer if we continue on our current path. With these new pledges involving restoring multiple plots of land and enabling more critical carbon sinks we should be able to reverse some of the damage by 2030.